I loved Birdman, so there you go

Critics watch movies for a living. Fans watch movies for a diversion.

Sometimes is niche audiences. Critics represent a certain class of snob that dont understand why a subculture-Y would like film-Y.

Then you have critics that draw a paycheck. Disney owned movies, no matter how disjointed will always get a level of treatment better than they deserve

Thor 2 was absolute shtt and critics gave it 66%. Suicide Squad was given 27% by critics, which was much more rewatchable and entertaining than Thor 2. (Im solidly in the Marvel club and loathe DC characters.) The chasm there doesnt make sense until you realize critics draw paychecks.

I guess I dont follow movie scoring but how is 97 is the opposite of 74?

There is also a not-insignificant segment of the Internet that will rate some movies poorly to drive down their ratings. RT has been retooling its system to combat this.

Critics are rich kids who don't have to work and take themselves way too seriously. They are all forced to eat and **** leftist ideology and they can't get published if they have common sense and real American values as all media outlets are bought leftist anti American garbage.

Therefore they like their bs propaganda

Americans still actually exist, in some real numbers, and they vote differently than these ****ing *******s.

That's why the difference.

cbr said:

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Critics are rich kids who don't have to work and take themselves way too seriously. They are all forced to eat and **** leftist ideology and they can't get published if they have common sense and real American values as all media outlets are bought leftist anti American garbage.

Therefore they like their bs propaganda

Americans still actually exist, in some real numbers, and they vote differently than these ****ing *******s.

That's why the difference.

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In an indirect way, your post has answered the question

Unplanned

Critics 48%
Audience 92%

Forbes critic "Perhaps the most bipartisan thing I can say is that if you like Trump rallies, especially the ones featuring Mike Pence, this is probably the movie for you. I don't say it as a compliment, but I suspect all involved may take it as one."


The Passion of the Christ
Critics 49%
Audience 80%

Chicago critic "If I were a Christian, I'd be appalled to have this primitive and pornographic bloodbath presume to speak for me."

I think it has to do with the fact that at some point for a lot of creators and critics, things became more about the message rather than how well the story was told. Movies promoting certain messages or placing certain demographics into lead roles are graded on a different scale than more traditional fare.

So a movie about racism or homosexuality is going to rate higher than another movie that doesn't deal with these topics. Or a movie with a minority lead or featuring under-represented populations will score higher than a movie featuring straight white male lead or primarily all white cast.

I see you're still really upset about seeing Booksmart.

But to keep it on topic, I went and read the reviews. As I suspected a lot of the negative reviews boiled down to managing expectations. People seem to be upset at the raunchiness or the fact that it's a teen coming of age movie. Your review of the movie was complaining about gay characters and the feminist themes.

I have to wonder, did you or the other negative reviews watch the trailers ahead of time? What exactly were you expecting?

If you went in expecting anything other than a raunchy teen comedy that might have some gay people in it (gasp) that's on you, not the film makers.

This is kind of like asking, "Why are doctors' diagnoses the opposite of people who diagnose themselves using WebMD?"

Are certain critics elitist? Snobs? Bleeding liberals? Absolutely. But so many more of them are...

A) more often than not also incredibly smart people - literal experts in the field - and simply understand or are disappointed by certain movies on a level that you could not care less about. That doesn't make them assh*le Debbie Downers or you dumb. They're just seeing these movies through a different lens, and can diagnose certain "ailments" that you, again, either don't care as much about or don't have the proper "training" for (for lack of a better word).

- and -

B) genuinely good people who simply love movies and want nothing more than for each and every one they see to be great. When they don't get a return on that investment, it can sometimes be more crushing than for those of you who see one movie every six weeks, if that, and treat them as nothing more than pure entertainment as opposed to those who treat them as something more (neither approach being better than the other). To that end, the frequency factor is a very real thing as well, as has already been touched upon in this thread, where in most of these critics have to watch and write about sometimes three or four movies a week - it's literally their job - and my patience would wear just as thin if I had to endure nearly every single major and minor release. I love movies, but I'm pretty sure I'd go insane if I had to watch and write about that many out of pure obligation.

Outside of all of that, good gosh, a couple of you are truly, embarrassingly bad at expressing your viewpoints / hate for who you think these people represent. Further, I think I'm finally realizing that it's not so much your opinions themselves that make me cringe, but the utterly cliched ways in which some of you hold and express those opinions. A lot of the time I don't disagree with you. Hollywood DOES suck. I live it everyday and so much of it drives me mad. Similarly, critics CAN suck. There are plenty who I roll my eyes at week after week. It's BECAUSE I agree with you guys that I cringe and come off sounding like a "Hollywood liberal" if only because your framing is just so incredibly lazy and cliched. I just wish you would argue better. Ironically, if you could, we wouldn't get in so many damn arguments over this crap.

Because, again, a lot of the time there's truth in so much of your views of Hollywood, critics, etc. But some of you end up coming off like the guy shouting from a megaphone on the corner, who then turns around, sticks his ass in the megaphone, and follows it up with a fart. It's just the most crass, strawman, stereotypical, lowest common denominator bullsh*t ever. Just repeating mindless "Hollywood" drivel that, if not expressed with so much cliche - but with a little more nuance - would be infinitely more agreeable. Which is a shame, because if some of you didn't express yourself with such transparent contempt, and weren't filled with so much righteous hate for "the other," people might actually listen to you. And we could bond over our opinions instead of having to roll our eyes at how flat-out insane those of you sound who come to an Entertainment board to ***** about Hollywood day after day after day.

The Debt said:

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Sometimes is niche audiences. Critics represent a certain class of snob that dont understand why a subculture-Y would like film-Y.

Then you have critics that draw a paycheck. Disney owned movies, no matter how disjointed will always get a level of treatment better than they deserve

Thor 2 was absolute shtt and critics gave it 66%. Suicide Squad was given 27% by critics, which was much more rewatchable and entertaining than Thor 2. (Im solidly in the Marvel club and loathe DC characters.) The chasm there doesnt make sense until you realize critics draw paychecks.

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Please tell me you're not insinuating that Disney actually pays off certain critics. This one of the DUMBEST arguments out there, based on nothing more than conspiracy theory bullsh*t. Seriously, this is like Twitter-bot-level trash that has been mocked for years.

So far in this thread you...

- Seemingly accused Disney of paying off critics, sans doubt or hesitation.

- Made a blatantly stereotypical generalization that critics represent "snobs" / don't understand cultures other than their own.

- Cherry picked two religious movies, and then cherry picked one review from each, somehow thinking this qualifies as proof of your sweeping generalizations.

I know I've asked you this before, but do you ever step back and take stock of just how mind-numbing this kind of discourse can be? Because you do this in thread after thread after thread; you post the most one-sided, unsubstantiated, cherry picked nonsense, and then somehow - actually, shockingly - seem content with your efforts. Like... THIS is the best you can do? You really look at those arguments and think, "Yep. Got 'em"?

TCTTS said:

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This is kind of like asking, "Why are doctors' diagnoses the opposite of people who diagnose themselves using WebMD?"

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No, it's not like that at all.

I don't disagree with most of the rest of your post below this.

My take is that if critics hate a movie, it might be bad.
If critics universally love a movie, it will be terrible.

The general public tends to watch movies they think they will like. They don't see movies they think they will hate.

Critics have to watch everything.

The attitudes displayed in your post are pretty good examples of why most Americans don't like the Hollywood elite and feel that Hollywood is out of touch. Even when you are trying to not be outright insulting, you come across as arrogant and condescending.

Your anger for critics is disturbing.

Quote:

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"Why are doctors' diagnoses the opposite of people who diagnose themselves using WebMD?"

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I do have to push back on this, though.

Sounds awfully close to saying critics are right and audiences are wrong.

Brian Earl Spilner said:

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Quote:

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"Why are doctors' diagnoses the opposite of people who diagnose themselves using WebMD?"

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I do have to push back on this, though.

Sounds awfully close to saying critics are right and audiences are wrong.

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Yeah, it's an assinine statement. Medicine is based on fact and science. Whether or not movies suck is 100% opinion.

Also I don't think people understand how Rotten Tomatoes works.

2 films can both have 90% and be considerably different quality and rating in critics reviews. It is an aggregate of critics reviews but it is done on a binary basis - positive or negative - and does not take into account any granularity within that,

Let's say a movie can be judged to be between a 1-10.

10 awesome (a must see, nearly flawless)
9 great (appeals to most, superior in many ways)
8 very good (appeals to many, qualities well above average)
7 good (general appeal, some good aspects, worth watching)
6 above average (appeals to some, has some redeeming qualities)
5 average (nothing to separate it from mediocrity, watchable)
4 below average (some detracting qualities, barely watchable)
3 poor (bad in many ways, not worth watching)
2 bad (intolerable, bad in every way, someone should be shot)
1 horrible (indescribably bad, shoot everyone involved)

Where 5.5 = the mean and thus 1-5 = negative and 6-10 = positive. A 9 vs a 6 is very different but both POSITIVE in RT reviews.

This is exaggerated but to see the reason not taking the granularity into account matters - consider 2 films:

Film 1. If 90% of reviewers gave it just a 6 and 10% gave it a 1 or 2. That film would have 90% on RT but be a very average film maybe even poor.

and

Film 2. if 90% gave it a 10 and 10% gave it a 5 that film would also have a 90% on RT.

Two films both 90% but a HUGE difference in ratings.


Said another way - if reviewers just barely "like" a film it gets the same effective rating as if they love that film. And if it's just slightly below average that also gets the same rating as if it is panned effectively.


Audience scores tend to be a bit more positive on "bad films" and negative on "artsy films" because of the another factor. The RT audience score is a 5-star system. It's a "positive" score if it gets 5,4 or 3 stars. and negative if it gets 1 or 2 stars. People tend to see things they are interested in (as opposed to reviewers) and therefore tend to rate those more positively on average. Even if you don't love something you were excited to see you are more likely to give it a 3 or better. For the more "artsy" films I think you get a lot of people just slightly negative on them (compared to critics) and that drags the score down.


Because of these factors I look at RT differently I think.

They are merely indicators of how likely you are to like them and NOT an indicator of the quality.

90% for critics does not mean you are really gonna LOVE it. It could be a generally good film or it could be great but you really have no idea. And audience scores are an indicator of how much fans of that genre liked the movie.

If I see

90% critics and 75% audience... be a little wary
90% critics and 90% audience... should be really good
75% critics and 85% audience.... likely just an ok film
50% critics and 80% audience... this is likely some bubble gum crowd pleaser
30% critics and 75% audience.... this is likely not very good but fans of that series or genre thought it was ok